Punishment for Honey
by WinterWriterRi
Summary: We all know Honey and Mori are so close it's not true. What would happen if it WASN'T true? If Mori didn't like Honey and only stuck around for entertainment and of course punishment. Well, look within to find out....


A cupboard. A perfectly ordinary piece of furniture. Something everyone had all over the house and home. Something everyone used and didn't think twice about. For everyone it was just that, a cupboard. A thing to function and nothing else.

But for one it is not just a piece of furniture. It is a punishment.

Honey can remember the cold inside the cupboard, the immeasurable cold sinking through his skin, into his bones. The light vanishing slowly into the darkness. The crippling darkness which threatens to overcome him. Only three feet high and four feet across it was too small for even him. His own twelve cubic feet of hell.

And Takashi knew. Takashi knew everything about him and this was no exception in that respect. But it was in another aspect. Because Takashi was the one to put him in there. He was the one to shove him in the small cupboard, to close the door and turn the key in the lock. He was the one to leave him inside the cupboard, the belly of the beast so to speak.

Because Takashi wasn't Honey's friend. Takashi was Honey's companion. Right from the start, Takashi made it clear. He wasn't there because he wanted to be. His father wanted him there and that was all. Takashi was always there. And when Honey trained and fought and made himself work, Takashi was good. He wasn't kind, he didn't bandage wounds or provide comfort in the wake of a defeat. But Takashi didn't harm him, didn't lock him in the cupboard for being lazy. He wasn't cruel, if Honey was a good son.

But when Honey joined the Host Club. Takashi had been overseas with his father. A whole week without him and on the first day, Honey had signed up to the Host Club. Honey's rooms had changed. In the week of Takashi's absence, the plain unadorned room had changed. From the bare walls, the single futon and low chest it had once contained, it had become a small boy's haven. Full of soft toys and a big four-poster bed and warm eiderdowns and rugs and pretty things. For a week, Honey enjoyed his freedom. A life without training regimes so hard he fainted, or endless laps around a course, or never-ending renditions of old and new moves so he knew them well enough to do in his sleep.

And then the dream died. Takashi came back...

And Takashi was enraged. A life-long dream had been broken and it wasn't Honey's. A life with just the two of them. The Kendo and the karate, the family heirs raised to be fighting champions, would be broken. A life of...sweets and undisciplined hours and weeks and months and _years_ of unending humiliation of saccharine sweetness that was _false_ would be all that would be left. A mockery of what they could have been.

And Takashi had punished him. The parents of both boys had to go overseas because of an emergency at one of the dojos. And Honey had suffered in their absence. He had kissed them goodbye, watched them run down the drive to the waiting cars and silently prayed for mercy. All the while, Takashi's gaze had burnt a hole in his back, a burning sensation that only promised worse. And so it had been.

Honey had followed the taller boy into the Dojo. The few guards practising there made their excuses and left them alone. Honey had wished he could cry out, he could stop what was to come. But he couldn't. Because Takashi said so. Because a man of fighting spirit did not beg for help. He took it like a man, even when he was less than four feet tall and he was small and blond and never likely to grow much taller. And he was a boy, tiny and insignificant against the whirlwind of his taller, better, perfect cousin. Because Takashi_ was_ perfect. He was the perfect height, held the perfect ideals, following the training regimes without compliant. In short, the perfect son.

And Takashi had hurt Honey. Kicked him, punched him, and slapped him. Honey had been dragged around the Dojo, Takashi's hands wound in his long blond hair. He had begged, pleaded, and forgotten every single lesson on pride and dignity in the face of adversarial forces his father had enforced upon him. And Takashi hadn't listened. Not to a single word. He had broken two fingers, a rib, given Honey two black eyes, strained a wrist, sprained an ankle. And the bruises; Honey had bruises everywhere. His arms from trying to defend himself, his legs from failed kicks, his knees from trying to crawl away, his back from the heavy wooden pole Takashi had used to hurt him, his hands from trying to deflect heavy blows from the practise swords littered around the place. His face for crying when he was meant to be a man.

And then, Takashi had pulled him from the dojo, pulled him across the grounds to the house. Up the stairs, through the corridors to Takashi's bedroom, as Honey begged and sobbed and tried to unfasten the fingers from around his neck and his wrist. And the door had been unlocked, the door to the wardrobe had been swung open and Honey forced inside with a push. And Takashi had shoved the door closed, the key clicking in the lock loudly. Honey had rushed at the door, banging on it, once again pleading for it to be opened. There was no reply.

He had sat down then lain down praying for something to happen. There was nothing that he could do. He stretched out, and his fingers came into contact with something hard and plastic. He had run his hands over it. A bucket. What was it for? A more pressing concern had crossed his mind, how long was Takashi meant to leave him in here?

He slept. He didn't know how long for, just that time had passed. And he was desperate for the toilet. He crawled to the door, his bladder uncomfortable in that position. He had called out for Takashi, prayed that Takashi would listen to him, understand his need. He kept it up for over fifteen minutes, just hoping someone, anyone could hear him. Then finally, blissfully a voice. Takashi's but Honey didn't care. He had called out, begging the door be opened. Then Takashi said..."Bucket". And then there was the sound that he dreaded. A door slamming. Honey called out, hoping Takashi didn't mean what he thought. But no-one answered his calls and soon his bladder forced him to make a decision. Bucket or his trousers...

He had cried as he went. A great heir to one of the most prestigious in martial art history and he was relieving himself in a small plastic bucket, on his knees, in a cupboard. He pushed the bucket toward the door of the cupboard, laid down again and tried to ignore the hunger pangs in his stomach. He drifted restlessly into sleep.

More time passed, again he didn't know how much. His stomach hurt worse now, and his mouth was dry. Horribly so. He had reached forward, blind in the absolute darkness. Cold glass touched his questing fingertips. He wrapped both hands around it and dragged it toward him. He had sniffed it carefully; it smelled of nothing and not as pungent as it would have been if Takashi had been...cruel. Honey drank greedily, tipping up the glass to capture the last few drops. He dropped the glass next to the door and found the bucket. Judging from lack of liquid inside it, Tamaki had emptied it. Thank god.

Honey slept. Waiting for his punishment to end...


End file.
